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]N^EWYORKITIS 



NEWYORKITIS 



BY 



JOHI^ H. GIRDI^ER, M. D. 

AUTHOR OF "the PLAGUE OF 
CITY NOISES" 



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THE GRAFTON^ PRESS 
NEW YORK 



1 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

MAY. 4 1901 

COFVRIQHT ENTRY 

CLASS OUYy.z. N». 
COPY 8. 



Copyright, 1901, 

in the United States and Great Britain, by 

John H. Girdner. 



All rights reserved. 



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THE DEVINNE PRE88. 



PEEFACE 

WHEN a new human soul is born 
into this world, with its little red 
body, the first to welcome its arrival is 
the medical man. And it is to him 
that the little sinner records his first 
" kick." When this mortal coil is worn 
out by age or disease, and the soul 
takes its flight hence, it is the medical 
man who generally says the last fare- 
well to it. " All the world 's a stage," 
and most people only see the players in 
their masks and make-up, over the foot- 
lights. The physician more than any 
other man goes behind the scenes. He 
frequents humanity's dressing-room. 



PKEFAOE 



He knows men's vices, but he also 
knows their virtues. 

The weaknesses of human nature, 
and the ravages of the world, the flesh, 
and the devil, are ever before his eyes; 
but he also sees the temptations which 
beset humanity on all sides. And there 
is no man who is called upon more 
often to put a new gore in his mantle 
of charity than is the practiser of the 
healing art whose heart is in the right 
place. The following pages are the 
result of twenty-five years of study and 
observation of the people and conditions 
which exist on Manhattan Island. That 
a very large percentage of all sorts and 
conditions of people lead an artificial 
life here, no one can successfully deny. 
This manner of life has brought about 
a condition of mind, body, and soul. 



6 



PKEFACE 



which I have endeavored to describe 
under the title of ISTewyorkitis. No 
New-Yorker loves this city and its 
people better than I do; and I have 
written these opinions and observa- 
tions with a conscience void of offense 
toward any. If I have seemed to speak 
plainly, it is because plain speaking to 
those we love is often the greatest ser- 
vice we can render to them. 

This book is intended as a plea for a 
wider thought horizon, a more genu- 
ine and comprehensive brotherly char- 
ity, less materialism, and more cul- 
tivation and development of those 
qualities which distinguish man from 
the lower animals. 

JOHN^ H. GlRDNEK, M.D. 

New York, April 15, 1901. 



THE DEFINITION AND 
ETIOLOGY OF NEWYOEKITIS 



" There is no chance, and no anarchy, in the universe. All 
is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his 
sphere. The young mortal enters the hall of the firmament ; 
there is he alone with them alone, they pouring on him bene- 
dictions and gifts, and beckoning him up to their thrones. On 
the instant, and incessantly, fall snow-storms of illusions. He 
fancies himself in a vast crowd which sways this way and that, 
and whose movement and doings he must obey; he fancies 
himself poor, orphaned, insignificant. The mad crowd drives 
hither and thither, now furiously commanding this thing to be 
done, now that. What is he that he should resist their will, 
and think or act for himself? Every moment, new changes, 
and new showers of deceptions, to baffle and distract him. 
And when, by and by, for an instant, the air clears, and the 
cloud lifts a little, there are the gods still sitting around him 
on their thrones — they alone with him alone." 

Ralph Waldo Emerson — Illusions. 



THE 

DEFINITION AND ETIOLOGY 

OF NEWYOEKITIS 

WHEN we walk through a zo- 
ological garden, we see cards on 
each animal cage and inclosure, giving 
the name of the occupant, the family 
to which it belongs, and its habitat. 
By habitat is meant that particular 
part of the world where the animal is 
found to exist in a state of nature, the 
country where it is indigenous. Na- 
ture's laws are such that each species 
of the animal creation is obliged to 
confine itself to some particular section 
of the earth in order that it shall con- 
tinue to exist; and generations of its 

11 



IS^EWYOEKITIS 



kind continue to succeed one another, 
and each lives out its life history. If 
the male and female of any species of 
the lower animals be removed from 
their own habitat to some other cli- 
mate, and allowed to live there in a 
state of nature, the race rapidly be- 
comes extinct — after a few genera- 
tions at most. 

Man presents a striking contrast to 
his fellow-creatures in this regard. 
He is the one animal who can inhabit 
the entire globe. He is a perfect cos- 
mopolite, and the billion and a half of 
individuals who compose the human 
race, grouped in what are called na- 
tions, have their homes all over the 
surface of the earth. 

Climate, soil, environment, and the 
gradual effect of heredity have caused 



12 



defi:nitio:n 



many and various departures from the 
primitive type. But the differences 
which we observe in the peoples inhab- 
iting the various parts of the earth are 
almost entirely superficial. I am speak- 
ing now of the physical man. They 
are principally differences in stature 
and in the color of the skin and its ap- 
pendages. The same physical laws of 
reproduction, growth, development, de- 
generation, and death hold good for the 
human race everywhere. Post-mortem 
examinations show that the internal 
viscera of an inhabitant of the north- 
polar region is identical with that of a 
native of Tierra del Fuego. And ex- 
cept when influenced by extraneous 
conditions, as climate, etc., the laws of 
disease are the same. And the injuries 
inflicted by Cain upon Abel, when he 



13 



]vrEWYOEKITIS 



slew him, would cause the death of a 
man to-day. 

Our object here is briefly to point 
out that the sciences of anatomy and 
physiology, and even of disease, point 
unerringly to the common origin of 
man. And they furnish the strongest 
corroborative evidence of the truth 
that all men everywhere are brothers. 

While man, the lord of creation, is 
permitted to assert his authority over 
nature everywhere, and establish his 
home and flourish on any part of the 
planet he may select, he can do so 
only on condition that he submits to, 
and obeys, those laws which experi- 
ence and observation and revelation 
teach are for the government of his 
continued mental, moral, and physical 
existence. 

14 



DEFIJSriTIOlSr 



These laws are inexorable, but man 
is left a free agent to obey or disobey 
them as his will shall determine. In 
this respect he again differs from the 
rest of the animal creation; for while 
the laws which govern the continued 
existence of the lower animals are 
equally binding, the animals themselves 
are not free to disobey them. They are 
not endowed with reason and freedom 
of will, but are guided by instinct in 
the selection of a proper home and in 
the care of themselves and their off- 
spring. A simple illustration of this 
truth is found in the fact that in seek- 
ing their food the lower animals avoid, 
through instinct, those plants, fruits, 
and substances which are to them poi- 
sonous and innutritions, and appro- 
priate the proper quantities of those 



15 



:^rEWYOEKITIS 



which are best suited to promote the 
growth and development of their organ- 
izations, while completing the round 
of their natural existence and repro- 
ducing themselves. 

The human race, as we have seen, is 
able to assert its authority, and estab- 
lish itself, and continue to exist, on any 
and all parts of the surface of the 
planet, so long as its members are 
obedient to certain fixed laws which 
govern their well-being. If, then, there 
is a place where the human inhabitants, 
if left to themselves, are unable to 
continue to exist from generation to 
generation independently, and all ex- 
traneous causes for their extermination 
can be eliminated, the presumption is 
that the cause must be found within 
themselves — that in disobedience to 

16 



DEFi:sriTIO]Sr 



the laws of existence already referred 
to will be found the reasons for the 
gradual deterioration and final extinc- 
tion of its inhabitants. 

Manhattan Island — old Kew York 
— is such a place. If an impassable 
wall were built around this island 
which would prevent any one of its 
present inhabitants from leaving it, 
and would prevent any one from the 
outside from coming on it, it is only a 
matter of a few hundred years until its 
human inhabitants would become ex- 
tinct, or be reduced to an insignificant 
remnant. In other words, the popula- 
tion of Manhattan Island is not self- 
supporting in the matter of reproducing 
itself, and but for the continual acces- 
sions from without, the race could not 
continue to exist here indefinitely. 

17 



^EWYOEKITIS 



That physical conditions have some- 
thing to do with bringing about this 
state of affairs there can be no question, 
but the principal cause is to be found in 
the habits and character of the inhabi- 
tants themselves, and in the artificial 
life they lead. By artificial life is 
meant the continual violation of those 
mental, moral, and physical laws which 
nature has miposed on mankind every- 
where, and the observance of which is 
essential to its existence and continued 
well-being. 

It is no exaggeration to say that !New 
York is a huge mill, into the hopper of 
Avhich is annually thrown raw material 
in the form of brain, brawn, money, 
and character drawn from the outside 
world, and the ground-out product of 
this mill is the metropolis^ with all that 



18 



defi:n^itio:n^ 



the term means; and if the supply of 
raw material were discontinued, the 
mill would in time cease to turn out 
the finished product. 

The island of Manhattan has an area 
of thirty-eight square miles. Two mil- 
lions of human beings inhabit this space. 
This population is made up of all sorts 
and conditions of people from all parts 
of the earth. The desire to live in 'New 
York seems to be widely spread, not 
only in America, but in all quarters of 
the globe, as is evidenced by the variety 
of languages spoken among the inhabi- 
tants. 

The motives which prompt people to 
journey from everywhere to take up 
their abode in New York are many and 
varied. They are attracted by the 
" opportunities " offered by this great 



19 



:newyoekitis 



city, we are told. Opportunities for 
what? That depends upon the seeker. 
The man who has got possession of 
millions in some other part of the 
country comes to ^N^ew York, builds 
himself a palace, and joins the colony 
of millionau'es. He does this for sev- 
eral reasons. Being a millionah^e has 
come to be a distinct calling or profes- 
sion, and it has its community interests 
the same as any other occupation, and 
those engaged in it like to get together. 
Like other mortals, they enjoy associa- 
tion on some common plane, and in this 
instance it is the common plane of mil- 
lionairism. Their pleasures have their 
origin in materialism, and Manhattan 
Island offers more and better means of 
gratifying the five senses than can be 
found elsewhere in the 'New World — 



20 



DEFINITION 



there are more things^ to buy with 
money, here than elsewhere. 

The millionaire finds here the best 
opportunities for indulging his pride of 
wealth and love of display. He can 
enjoy to the fullest that distinction and 
high consideration which the rest of 
the world has come to accord to the 
very rich, and he is certain to have his 
sayings and doings heralded to the 
world by the daily press as would be 
done nowhere else. And last, but not 
least, New York is about the last 
place in the world where the question, 
How did Tie get Ms millions? is likely 
to be insisted upon. 

The poor man, who is often as ma- 
terialistic and money-loving as the 
rich, is attracted to the metropolis in 
the hope of getting some of the vast 



21 



NEWYOEKITIS 



sums that the rich are spending; and 
unfortunately the methods he adopts 
of accomplishing this feat are not 
always the most commendable. 

But there is a large class attracted 
to this island by promptings and de- 
sires which are most worthy. A young 
man, engaged in trade or a profession, 
finds his native town too contracted. 
He feels within himself the desire and 
ability for a wider field of action and 
harder competition. He does not like 
cheap success, and so he takes up his 
abode in the metropolis, literally " look- 
ing for trouble " ; and he will find it. 
But let no one be discouraged. Let 
the young man who feels himself fit 
bring his skill, character, integrity, 
brains, enterprise, and health into the 
great arena of competition which ]^ew 



22 



defi:n^itioi^ 



York offers, and enter the strife — not 
aiming to accumulate this world's 
goods, except incidentally; but let his 
aim ever be the education and eleva- 
tion of his mind and his soul to higher 
and better things. 

This is the only success or goal worth 
a man's striving for. To the growing 
man, every other kind will prove to be 
Dead Sea fruit, and will sooner or later 
turn to bitterness and leave him deso- 
late. Let him be earnest and diligent 
in his business, whatever that may be ; 
but keep ever before his mind this di- 
vine injunction : " Seek ye first the 
kingdom of God, and His righteous- 
ness; and all these things shall be 
added unto you." To such a one 
New York will yield its choicest gifts. 

But he will need to have a strong 



23 



:n^ewyoekitis 



head, a stout heart, and a firm will to 
withstand the illusions, temptations, 
and distractions which will beset him 
on all sides. 

To the young man who is ambitious 
for a " strenuous life " : Don't put on 
a uniform, and sword, and pistols, and 
spurs, and go blustering about the 
planet, shooting and plundering help- 
less brown or yellow people; but come 
and establish yourself in a useful busi- 
ness or profession on Manhattan Is- 
land, adopting methods which are hon- 
est and upright before God and man, 
and you will find that your life will 
be as strenuous as you could possibly 
desire. 

If you are ambitious for missionary 
work, and earnestly desire to teach the 
doctrine of peace, love, and human bro- 



24 



defi:nition 



therhood, don't go to some far-away 
island or strange people, but come to 
Manhattan Island. There is no place 
on earth more in need of missionaries 
than this island. ][Srot so much among 
the poor, and weak, and lowly, but 
among the rich and powerful. The 
East Side and the West Side are fairly 
well supplied with missions already. In 
fact, missions " on the side " is a New- 
yorkitic fad. What we need most is 
missions in the center. We need strong 
men whose daily lives are missions, and 
I earnestly commend this work to am- 
bitious young men. 

On these thirty-eight square miles of 
island live representatives from almost 
every nation on earth. Here is the 
Italian quarter, the Chinese quarter, 
the Hebrew quarter, etc., and each 



25 



JSTEWYORKITIS 



colony has brought with it not only its 
own language, religion, and customs, 
but each one has planted on this small 
area its virtues and its vices. Many 
of these people are not here to make 
homes and become a part and parcel 
of the city and country and their insti- 
tutions, but are simply here, to use a 
popular expression, " for what there is 
in it." And it is a fact that the per- 
centage of " homes " is smaller among 
Manhattan Islanders of all classes than 
among an equal number of people any- 
where else in America. 

This conglomei'ation of people and 
conditions which I have briefly out- 
lined, acting and reacting on each 
other, has brought about an abnormal 
condition of existence — a disease — 
which I have named ISTewyorkitis, and 



26 



DEFIIS^ITION 



which it is now proposed to describe. 
[N^ewyorkitis is a disease which affects 
a large percentage of the inhabitants 
of Manhattan Island, and is^ making 
serious inroads on their mental, moral, 
and physical health. It is not a new 
malady, but it has not been described 
before. Sporadic cases have appeared 
among the people of the island since 
early in its history; but it is only in the 
last few decades that the disease has 
become both endemic and epidemic. 

Before describing in detail the symp- 
toms of this affection, it seems advi- 
sable, in the interest of the non-techni- 
cal reader, to give a short account of 
the etymology or make-up of the term 
!Newyorkitis. 

The Greek suffix itis^ as used in 
medical science, means inflammation; 



27 



:n^ewyorivitis 



and when it is attached to a word, the 
term then signifies that the thing for 
which the word originally stood is 
inflamed. 

Thus, for instance, itis attached to 
ap2:)endix gives us cqypeyidioitis^ to^m- 
toneum and we have peritonitis; and 
so when we say of a person that he 
has I*^ewyorMtis, we mean that he 
has got his New York inflamed. The 
critical reader will ask at this point: 
" In what part of the body of a Man- 
hattan Islander is the New York lo- 
cated?" I reply by asking: "In 
what part of the body of a Boston man 
is his Boston located? Or a Chicago 
man, his Chicago? Or a Philadelphia 
man, his Philadelphia? Or a St. Paul 
man, his St. Paul?" I am not writ- 
ing on anatomy, or on cerebral loca- 



28 



defi:n^itio:n^ 



tion: I am describing an abnormal 
condition. 

I mentioned above that the disease is 
endemic on Manhattan Island — that is 
to say, it is peculiar to this locality 
and its people, and is constantly pres- 
ent here in a greater or less degree. 
But it must not be supposed that all 
cases of ]S^ewyorkitis are to be found 
in ]N^ew York. We encounter cases 
of this disease in all parts of the 
country, but the patient, or infection, 
came originally from this island. It 
is like Asiatic cholera, which takes its 
name from the fact that the germ 
which produces it is endemic in Asia; 
the disease is always present there; and 
when cholera appears in some other 
part of the world, it is because the in- 
fection was conveyed there, directly or 



29 



XEAVYORKITIS 



indirectly, from the endemic focus of 
infection in Asia. 

^eA^'^^orkitis is a communicable dis- 

ft. 

ease. It seems to spread by mental 
and moral contact of the health v with 

ft-' 

the atflicted. Bring a healthy subject 
from a rural district to this island, 
and he soon begins to show symptoms of 
XeA^yorkitis, and the virulence of the 
attack will depend upon the congenital 
or acquired resisting power of the indi- 
vidual. It is doubtful if anv one is en- 

ft 

tirelv hnmune from the infection, or can 
resist some de^-ree of inoculation after 
a few vears' residence on the island. 

ft. 

Thus we find all t^'pes of the disease, 
from the mildest to the most violent 
and incural^le form. 

It is customarv. when writin^^ about 

ft ^ cir' 

a disease, to divide its s^miptoms into 



30 



DEFINITIOIS^ 



groups, and then to study each group 
separately. I shall follow this rule in 
describing Xewyorkitis. I shall also 
give a few clinical reports of typical 
cases of the disease which have come 
under the author's personal observa- 
tion, selecting the cases so that each 
phase of the malady will be illustrated. 
Sufficient space will then be devoted to 
the treatment and cure. 

^Newyorkitis is a disease in which 
the mind, soul, and body have departed 
more or less from the normal. In some 
cases the mental phenomena are most 
marked; in others the moral system 
seems to have departed farthest from 
the normal; the physical or somatic 
symptoms are not so constant, but 
when present they are of practically 
the same character in all cases. 



31 



THE MEIS^TAL SYMPTOMS OF 
:^rEWYORKITIS 



THE 

MENTAL SYMPTOMS OF 

NEWYOKEITIS 

THE mental symptoms exhibited by 
persons suffering from Newyork- 
itis, looked at as a whole, seem at first 
glance to be closely allied to the delu- 
sions of general paresis: they nearly 
all partake of the character of delu- 
sions of grandeur. 

The novice in diagnosis may mis- 
take Newyorkitis for Boston liyper- 
tropliy^ or Chicago elephantiasis; but 
after a little experience he can readily 
make the differential diagnosis be- 
tween these maladies. 

It is when we study the delusions in 

35 



:n^ewyoekitis 



detail that we fully realize the destruc- 
tive effects of ^Newyorkitis on the 
mental machinery of its victim. 

With all his delusions and hallucina- 
tions of grandeur, pride of intellect, and 
boasted mental acumen, when we ex- 
plore the mental horizon of a ^N^ew- 
yorkitic we discover the sad fact that 
it extends only from the East River to 
the Hudson, and from the Batterv to 
the Harlem River and Spuyten Duyvil. 
He imagines that the whole of this 
country, or all of it worth his consid- 
eration, is included in that area. He 
imagines that any man who has pos- 
session of one million dollars' worth or 
more of this world's goods is a gen- 
tleman; that he is organized success, 
and the highest type of manhood at- 
tainable, especially if he gives a small 



36 



MEN^TAL SYMPTOMS 

percentage of his income each year to 
so-called charity. And if a ISTewyork- 
itic reads the following simple couplet 
he won't understand it: 

He that feeds men serveth few ; 
He serves all who dares be true. 

The victim of Newyorkitis has num- 
berless illusions, delusions, and hallu- 
cinations about what he calls " society." 
His respect for clothes, and for one 
street or avenue over another, is as- 
tounding. The value of the cloth a 
man wears, and the price per front foot 
of the street he lives in, play all sorts 
of pranks with the diseased imagina- 
tion of a ISTewyorkitic, and so distort 
his estimates of men, and things, and 
institutions, that they become ludicrous 
to a healthy subject, or to one less ad- 

37 



NEWYOEKITIS 



vanced in the disease. He imagines 
that the young woman who walks 
Sixth Avenue, unkempt, and dressed in 
cheap, illy fitting clothes, is an entirely 
different creature when he sees her 
powdered and perfumed, and dressed 
in the height of fashion, walking Fifth 
Avenue, or lolling in the scented at- 
mosphere of the Turkish room of a 
modern hotel. 

The mental standards, weights, and 
measures which the patient may have 
brought with him from the country 
seem entirely lost. In fact, the most 
constant and widely spread delusion 
from which the IS'ewyorkitic suffers is 
the belief that the mental processes and 
logical conclusions which, in part at 
least, guided his conduct while at home 
in his native town, are false and use- 

38 



MENTAL SYMPTOMS 

less standards here on Manhattan 
Island. 

The patient has forgotten the fact, if 
he ever knew it, that Manhattan Island, 
like his father's farm, is, at last, only 
a small portion of the surface of the 
globe, and that the mental and moral 
laws which govern the universe, like 
the physical laws of gravitation and 
the conservation of forces, are as cer- 
tain of self-execution in the one place as 
in the other. I can never cease class- 
ing with Christopher Columbus that 
small boy who ran to his mother one 
day with the announcement that he had 
made the discovery that their back yard 
was a part of the surface of the earth. 

The mental appetite of a ^ewyork- 
itic is morbid and perverted. All 
memory of such authors as Ruskin, 

39 



:newyoekitis 



Macaulay, Carlyle, and Emerson, Long- 
fellow and Lowell, is hopelessly gone. 
He must have a novel written by an- 
other !Newyorkitic, if possible one in 
a more advanced stage of the disease. 
The mental roast beef and mashed po- 
tatoes of Shakspere and the genuine 
sauce of Sheridan he will not swallow. 
These patients demand of the theatrical 
managers such plays as " In Gay 'New 
York," " The Passing Show," and 
"Zaza." His daily paper must be 
highly spiced. It must contain all the 
latest gossip and scandal. Divorces 
and elopements, suicides and murders, 
must be set forth in detail, with mam- 
moth head-lines. These patients must 
have a daily record of the sayings and 
doings of millionaires. And if a mil- 
lionaire has a death, marriage, or birth 



40 



ME]S^TAL SYMPTOMS 

in his family, the ^N^ewyorkitic demands 
of his editor the most minute partic- 
ulars of the whole proceeding, with 
ample illustrations. 

In advanced cases of Newyorkitis,the 
gray matter of the brain is never used 
to think with, except when the patient 
is engaged in getting money, or grati- 
fying some physical appetite. At all 
other times he thinks with his reflex 
nervous system; that is, his opinions 
and views on all other questions are 
simply reflexes of the views and opin- 
ions of some other man or group of 
men he happens to be following at 
the time. The IN^ewyorkitic has lost 
the power of studying a question on 
its merits, and carrying the arguments 
pro and con to their logical conclusion, 
uninfluenced by greed and selfishness 

41 



NEWYORKITIS 



and the views of other men. Indeed, 
he seems to have lost both the power 
and the desire of making up his own 
mind, and takes apparent pleasure in 
having others make it up for him. 

If you exclude those who are en- 
tirely demented, nine out of ten of the 
inmates of an asylum for the insane 
will tell you in private conversation 
that they themselves are not insane, 
but that all the other inmates of the 
institution are as crazy as March hares, 
and they will often express the deepest 
sympathy for them in their misfortunes. 

The victim of I^ewyorkitis not only 
never suspects that there is anything 
the matter with him, but he utterly 
fails to recognize the existence of the 
disease in another. Indeed, he has a 
certain contempt for the man who 



42 



MEN^TAL SYMPTOMS 

seems to be free from the infection, 
and this contempt is only increased 
when he discovers that your mental 
horizon is not limited by the confines 
of Manhattan Island, and that your 
mental processes and opinions are your 
own, and not, like his, mere reflexes of 
some other man or group of men. 

And because you think for yourself, 
he puts you down as a " crank." And 
the air of strutting superiority assumed 
by one of these intellectual pygmies is 
ludicrous. The contrast between the 
assumed and the real mental capacity of 
a ]N^ewyorkitic reminds one of a patient 
in the last stages of general paresis. 
Such a patient, unable to stand, or 
scarcely to raise his hand to his head, 
owing to muscular weakness, will assure 
you that with a single blow from his 

43 



ISTEWYOEKITIS 



powerful right arm he can crush the 
skull of an ox. 

A !Newyorkitic is simply unable to 
understand how a man can reach a 
conclusion and stand by it, uninflu- 
enced by other men's opinions and his 
own personal interests. 

These unfortunates adopt a particu- 
lar creed or party for no better reason 
than the fact that their parents be- 
longed to it, or, what is less commenda- 
ble, because of fear of some individual, 
or of public opinion, or because it co- 
incides with their material interests. 
The ^N^ewyorkitic thus forfeits the re- 
spect of all men of all creeds and par- 
ties who are mentally honest. You 
meet a man, for instance, who argues 
that the moon is made of cheese. He 
may convince you, for the time, that he 



44 



MEISTTAL SYMPTOMS 

is sincere in this belief. You do not 
agree with him, but his apparent sin- 
cerity commands your respect. Now 
if you learn the next day that this man 
is in the dairy business, and that the 
general acceptation of his cheese the- 
ory would be of immense advantage to 
his dairy interests, you unconsciously 
lose all respect for, and interest in, his 
views on astronomy and every other 
subject. 

I admire the honest avowal of mo- 
tive which was contained in the reply 
to a question I once asked of an insane 
man. This poor man was chronically 
and incurably insane. He had been in 
the asylum for ten years. Every time 
he was allowed out in the grounds for 
exercise, he would walk back and forth 
over the same path, some twenty yards 

45 



KEWYORKITIS 



long, and looking across the river at 
the rows of city blocks, he would repeat 
aloud to himself in a monotonous tone: 
"All these houses belong to me! 
All these houses belong to me ! " I 
asked him why he continued to an- 
nounce that he was the owner of all 
the houses. His reply was: "I am 
trying to create a sentiment of that 
kind, sir ; " and turning quickly, he con- 
tinued his monotonous tramp and " All 
these houses belong to me ! " 

The IS^ew York Academy of Medi- 
cine appointed a committee, some years 
ago, to endeavor to induce Congress to 
pass certain legislation looking to the 
improvement of the national health 
laws. A distinguished I*^ewyorkitic 
asked me confidentially this question: 
" What is there in this bill for you doc- 

46 



MENTAL SYMPTOMS 

tors?" He looked surprised and in- 
credulous when I told him there was 
nothing in it except that the academy 
believed its enactment into law would 
save tens of thousands of human lives 
every year. 

To many of these patients, such pro- 
ductions as the Decalogue, the Sermon 
on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, 
the Declaration of Independence, and 
Plato, are " back numbers." The un- 
fortunate sufferer has no means of 
knowing whether a given piece of lit- 
erature is new or old, except by calcu- 
lating the number of years which have 
elapsed since it was first written. 

As an illustration of how these pa- 
tients persistently refuse to seek for 
the truth, and will investigate a ques- 
tion only so far as it tends to strengthen 

47 



NEWYOEKITIS 



their own delusions, I mention the fol- 
lowing incident: A certain well-known 
^ewyorkitic had most pronounced de- 
lusions, which took the form of opposi- 
tion to the Christian religion. With 
tongue and pen he labored to disprove 
the truth and logic of the Scriptures. 
And being a clever juggler of words, 
and a master of the art of cheap and 
shallow sarcasm, he got a wide reputa- 
tion for intellectual force, and he had 
many followers. This patient said to 
me one day: "I performed a greater 
miracle this afternoon than was ever 
performed by Jesus, the founder of your 
Christian religion. I sat in my office 
in Wall Street and had a long conver- 
sation with my clerk, who was at the 
time in Chicago. I not only heard 
every word he said, but the tones of his 



48 



MENTAL SYMPTOMS 

voice and his articulation were as clear 
and as readily familiar as if he had 
been present in the office with me. 
The ^N^azarene was never able to make 
His voice heard even from Jerusalem 
to Jericho, a distance of not over fifteen 
miles. After such demonstrations it is 
surprising that sensible men should 
continue to look upon the Scriptures 
as anything but stupidly constructed 
myths and fables." 

!Now if this man had been in earnest, 
and had studied the Master's teachings 
without prejudice, and with a desire to 
ascertain the truth, he would have 
known that in being able, through the 
instrumentality of a modern invention, 
to send his voice from New York to 
Chicago, he was not only performing 
a modern miracle, but was fulfilling a 

49 



ISTEWYOEKITIS 



prophecy of the Master, who said : " If 
ye abide in Me, and My word abide in 
you, the things which I do shall ye do 
also, and greater things, because I go 
away." 

He would also have known that the 
great modern discoveries and inven- 
tions — call them miracles if you will, 
they are the control of the physical 
world and its forces by the spiritual 
man — are fulfilments of this prophecy 
and promise of the Saviour of man- 
kind. 

This Newyorkitic would have dis- 
covered that the miracle of telephon- 
ing, and the score of other miracles of 
the same character, have been wrought 
by just those nations who have abided 
most in Him, and in which His word 
has most abided. None of these 

50 



me:n^tal symptoms 

modern miracles have been performed 
by the Turks, for instance, nor by 
any other anti-Christian nation. 

'No age or sex is exempt from the 
disease; in some respects women seem 
to suffer more than men. Children of 
Manhattan Islanders show symptoms 
of the affection very early. In fact, 
there is no doubt but that in many 
cases the disease is hereditary. As a 
case in point, a little six-year-old boy 
whose parents are Newyorkitics was 
recently asked at the kindergarten to 
name the principal use of the streets of 
New York. He promptly replied that 
the streets of New York were made 
for the cable-cars to run over. If this 
boy spends his life on Manhattan Is- 
land, the chances are he will never have 
occasion to amend this answer, and 

51 



NEWYOEKITIS 



never think what the streets of New 
York are really for, and to whom they 
really belong. 

!Newyorkitis in women presents cer- 
tain symptoms which seem to be pecu- 
liar to that sex and are not pronounced 
features of the disease in men. The 
female of every species of the animal 
creation possesses philoprogenitiveness, 
or love of offspring, and in the human 
female this sentiment is especially 
marked when she is in a normal con- 
dition. But when she is suffering 
from the disease which I am describ- 
ing, the brain center which presides 
over this sentiment is entirely para- 
lyzed, or paralyzed to such an extent 
that its function takes on an entirely 
abnormal character. In those cases 
where the paralysis of this brain center 



52 



MENTAL SYMPTOMS 

is complete, the patient has lost not 
only all desire and affection for off- 
spring of her own, but she exhibits a 
marked dislike for the offspring of 
others. In another class of Cases the 
patient shows the natural love of chil- 
dren when they belong to others, but 
she does not wish any of her own. 
In another large percentage of cases 
of IS^ewyorkitis in the female, the brain 
center which presides over philopro- 
genitiveness is still active, and some- 
times abnormally so, but its function is 
perverted, and the unfortunate patient 
lavishes her natural maternal love and 
devotion on a dog, a cat, a bird, or 
some other of the lower animals. This 
class of patients have a settled delu- 
sion that children are an unmitigated 
nuisance ; that so-called " society," the 

53 



N^EWYOEKITIS 



theater, card-parties, late suppers, and 
supposed freedom from care and re- 
sponsibility, are blessings which greatly 
outweigh the sacred joys of mother- 
hood. And the Divine injunction to 
multiply and replenish the earth, in 
which our fathers and mothers be- 
lieved, finds no place in the disordered 
mind of a female Newyorkitic. The 
latter part of the injunction — to sub- 
due the earth and have dominion over 
it — she makes strenuous efforts to live 
up to. 

As mentioned above, one of the most 
pronounced symptoms of Newyorkitis 
is a circumscribed mental horizon. 
The patient thinks in a circle bounded 
by the confines of Manhattan Island, 
and when, from business or other neces- 
sity, he is obliged to visit other portions 



54 



MENTAL SYMPTOMS 

of the United States, he is unhappy, and 
counts the time as lost, so far as plea- 
sure or comfort is concerned, until he 
returns to his island. 

As a natural result of this abnormal 
mental state, when the Newyorkitic 
travels for health or pleasure, there is 
no place for him to go but out of the 
country; and so he crosses the ocean, 
and we find him chasing about in every 
nook and corner of the Old World. 
He suffers from the delusion that 
there are no health resorts or mineral 
springs or natural scenery in his own 
country comparable with those of Eu- 
rope. His mind is filled with all kinds 
of illusions, delusions, and hallucina- 
tions about so-called European royalty 
and nobility; and if, by any means, 
fair or foul, he can touch elbows with 

55 



]^EWYOEKITIS 



an earl or a duke or a prince, his cup of 
joy is full. If this circulating about 
the planet had the effect of widening 
his mental horizon, and thus starting 
him on the road to recovery, it would 
be a blessing; but European travel as 
a remedial agent, in these cases, has 
been disappointing. The patient gen- 
erally returns from these trips abroad 
without any mental improvement, and 
he continues to think in the same reflex 
way and in the same circumscribed 
circle, and his estimate of men and 
things and institutions remains un- 
changed. 



56 



THE MORAL SYMPTOMS 
OF ISTEWYORKITIS 



THE 

MOKAL SYMPTOMS OF 

IN^EWYORKITIS 

I WISH to say right here that in di- 
agnosticating the moral symptoms of 
Newyorkitis the mere opinions of an 
individual or of a number of individu- 
als do not count. There is to be no 
sitting in judgment on our brothers; 
but by their fruits we are to know 
all men. And how far the moral symp- 
toms in a given case show the patient 
to have departed from the normal is 
to be determined in all instances by 
comparing his moral views and opin- 
ions and conduct with the code laid 
down by the founder of Christianity. 

59 



NEWYOEKITIS 



And any one familiar with this yard- 
stick can do the measuring for himself. 
It is like listening to a heart which 
is organically diseased: you are able 
to determine the presence of disease, 
and its extent, because you are familiar 
with the movements and sounds of the 
normal heart. 

When we take the plain words and 
simple doctrine taught by Jesus, and 
compare them with the moral phenomena 
of Newyorkitis, we find that in every 
case of this affection the moral sys- 
tem has suffered serious deterioration. 
The moral ^N^ewyorkitic is spiritually 
obtuse and morally short-sighted. He 
is not necessarily vicious; he is more 
likely to arouse your pity than your 
opposition. He worships gold instead 
of God. He strives after material 



60 



MOEAL SYMPTOMS 

blessings instead of spiritual gifts. 
His brotherly love and charity are in- 
fluenced by greed and selfishness, and 
strictly limited by natural and political 
divisions of the planet. How much he 
loves a brother, depends on the color 
of that brother, and the size of his bank- 
account. 

These patients are no more able to 
feel and exercise a love and charity 
which encircles the globe, and in- 
cludes all men as brothers, than they 
are to become mentally citizens of the 
planet. 

I pointed out, when speaking of the 
mental symptoms, that a ^ewyorkitic 
cannot tliinTc of the people on this little 
globe as a whole, because his thinking 
is only a reflection of the thoughts of 
some other person or persons. ]S^either 

61 



y 



NEWYOEKITIS 



can he exercise a religious affection for 
the whole human race, because his re- 
ligion is not taken first-hand from the 
Saviour of mankind, but is only a reflex 
of some creed or doctrine constructed 
by men in ages past, when they were 
far less ably equipped for studying the 
Scriptures and determining what is 
man's duty than are men of his own 
time. The moral !Newyorkitic clings 
to his religious doctrine with a tenacity 
born of superstition and narrow bigotry. 
He would, if he could, corner Christ's 
love, and dole it out to the rest of man- 
kind as lie saw fit. 

And it is quite probable that if the 
very men who, doing the best they 
could with the light they had, con- 
structed the ]^ewyorkitic's particular 
creed, could come back to earth, they 



62 



MOEAL SYMPTOMS 

would be so uncouth that he would 
not take them into his church, but 
they would be sent to worship in the 
East- or West-Side chapel with the 
poor. 

The Newyorkitic admits in theory 
and talks loudly about the fatherhood 
of God and the brotherhood of man; 
but he is always the elder brother and 
in direct succession. He, as the elder 
brother, feels called upon — in fact, is 
directed by the Father, so he says — to 
take charge of the effects and order the 
lives of these younger brothers; and 
he is further directed, he says, that if 
these younger brothers object to this 
arrangement, or question his authority 
from their common Father, then the 
commandment, " Thou shalt not kill," 
which the Father made, becomes null 

63 



NEWYOEKITIS 



and void, and he is to proceed to shoot 
these ungracious and inappreciative 
younger brothers to death. 

The ISTewyorkitic is hke those dis- 
ciples who were not yet cured of Jeru- 
salemitis, and were surprised to find the 
Master communing at the well with the 
woman of the hated Samaritans. Like 
these Jerusalemitics, his charity and 
love of brother is confined by geo- 
graphical lines. It is this contracted 
and circumscribed love-horizon and 
narrow mantle of charity that warps 
and distorts his moral system. The 
patient's moral insights are clouded. 
And whether the matter be great or 
small, the just relations of nation to 
nation or individual to individual, he is 
hopelessly unable to reach moral con- 
clusions of truth, honesty, and God's 



64 



MOEAL SYMPTOMS 

eternal justice. This moral short-sight- 
edness, this seeing in part only, with 
selfishness always in the foreground, 
involves these unfortunate patients in 
all sorts of ridiculous moral incon- 
sistencies. 

Cases of moral IS'ewyorMtis are 
found in all classes of society, but it 
is essentially a disease of the "better 
classes." Here again it resembles gen- 
eral paresis. General paresis may be 
designated a disease of strong men, 
because its victims are, as a rule, in the 
prime of life, when their mental and 
physical powers are at their best. You 
will rarely see a case of general paresis 
under twenty or over fifty-five years of 
age. And moral ]N'ewyorkitis is not 
so often found among the poor and the 
lowly as among the rich and powerful. 

65 



:n^ewyokkitis 



The statistical tables of life- and acci- 
dent-insurance companies show that 
the followers of the various professions 
and occupations are especially liable to 
contract certain diseases and injuries. 
Physicians and surgeons, for instance, 
are more exposed to the danger of con- 
tracting contagious diseases and poi- 
soned wounds than others. Engineers 
and trainmen are liable to death and 
injury from railroad accidents. Soldiers 
in the field are bad risks, owing to the 
danger of gunshot wounds, and theo- 
logians are the special victims of New- 
yorkitis. And strange as it may seem, 
as a rule in this class of cases the moral 
symptoms are the more pronounced. 

Clergymen are professionally good 
men. They are specialists in right- 
eousness; and like all specialists, they 

66 



MORAL SYMPTOMS 

are in perpetual danger of becoming 
narrow and bigoted, which is very near 
to another name for ^ewyorkitis. Let 
a man become a throat speciaUst and 
look down throats for a living, and 
unless he is broad-minded, or has had 
a wide previous acquaintance with the 
diseases and injuries of the rest of the 
anatoni}^, the human subject soon be- 
comes to him nothing but a throat. To 
many eye specialists a man is nothing 
but a pair of eyes, and no matter what 
abnormalities may occur in other parts 
of his anatomy, they are all referable 
by the gone-to-seed specialist to his 
pet organ. And the treatment of the 
diseases in his specialty must conform 
to a plan mapped out in his own warped 
mind, if it is to meet with his approval. 
The specialist in righteousness is 

67 



]SrEWYOEKITIS 



exposed to the same dangers we have 
described above. A clerg3rtnan suffer- 
ing from moral I^ewyorkitis narrows 
the great, broad doctrine of love, truth, 
justice, and brotherhood for every in- 
habitant of this planet, which was 
taught by Christ, to a picayune creed 
of one kind or another to meet the 
approval of the ^Newyorkitic congrega- 
tion which employs him. And his suc- 
cess, pecuniary and otherwise, does not 
depend so much upon the particular 
kind of vice and crime which he de- 
nounces as upon the kinds which he 
does not denounce and condemn. 

To the narrowing effect of this con- 
stantly looking in one direction, add 
the pecuniary and other advantages 
which accrue from not looking in any 
other direction, and it is easy to see how 



68 



MOEAL SYMPTOMS 

readily a clergyman may lose his sense 
of proportion. 

There was once a clergyman,Dr. . 

He was a sincere and earnest disciple 
of the Master, and he was therefore a 
growing man. He set to himself the 
task of preaching the truth as he 
understood it, regardless of whom it 
helped or hurt. And as might have 
been expected, when he reached a cer- 
tain point in his moral evolution, a 
large percentage of the congregation 
began to complain and find fault with 
his sermons. They said he did nothing 
but scold tliem. And he resigned. 

This clergyman's case recalls to mind 
the old story of the colored preacher 
who was assigned to a new charge. In 
his first sermon, instead of painting the 
beauties of the other world and simply 

69 



:n^ewyoekitis 



denouncing sin in the abstract, he 
preached a plain sermon on stealing 
chickens and watermelons. He met 
with a cold reception, and when the 
service was over he was asked to 
resign. He inquired the reason, and 
was informed that such sermons as he 
had just preached had a tendency to 
throw a coldness over the meetings. 

On a certain Sunday morning I in- 
vited Mr. B, who was my guest, and 
who hails from another city, to attend 

Dr. 's church with me. Mr. B is 

not a Newyorkitic, nor is he popular 
with Newyorkitics. His daily walk and 
conversation, however, show him to be 
an humble follower of the Master. He 
is an official in his own church at home. 
After the service was over, and while 
the doxology was being sung, a note 



70 



MOKAL SYMPTOMS 

was passed to me, I receiving it from 
the gentleman who occupied the pew 
immediately behind me. The note was 
signed by an official of the church, a 
man of education and wealth — pre- 
sumedly a Christian and a gentleman. 
The note said in substance : " There 
are photographers outside on the street. 
Get Mr. B away from the church before 
they snap-shot him, for we don't want the 
church in the same picture with hhn." 
In other words : " Remove the ' corpse ' ; 
we don't want the church polluted." 

In the second chapter of the General 
Epistle of James I read: " My brethren, 
have not the faith of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect 
of persons. For if there come unto 
your assembly a man with a gold ring, 
in goodly apparel, and there come in 

71 



^EWYOEKITIS 



also a poor man in vile raiment; and 
ye have respect to him that weareth 
the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit 
thou here in a good place ; and say to 
the poor. Stand thou there: . . . are ye 
not then partial in yourselves, and are 
become judges of evil thoughts? " 

Some of " our best people " have re- 
vived of late the ancient occupation of 
vice-hunting. And like the vice-hun- 
ters of old, they confine themselves to 
certain sections of the city, and to pecu- 
liar forms of vice. 

We have records of this kind of vice- 
hunting which date back to the year 
A.D. 32. In that year vice-hunting 
appears to have been popular with cer- 
tain philanthropists and "prominent 
business men" of the city of Jerusa- 
lem. The account is as follows: 



72 



MOEAL SYMPTOMS 

" And early in the morning He came 
again into the temple, and all the people 
came unto Him ; and He sat down, and 
taught them. And the scribes and 
Pharisees brought unto Him a woman; 
and when they had set her in the midst, 
they said unto Him, Master, this woman 
was taken in the very act. Now Moses 
in the law commanded us, that such 
should be stoned: but what sayest 
Thou? . . . And when they continued ask- 
ing Him, He lifted up Himself, and said 
unto them. He that is without sin among 
you, let him cast the first stone. . . . And 
they which heard it, being convicted by 
their own conscience, went out one by 
one, beginning at the eldest, even unto 
the last: and Jesus was left alone, and 

the woman standing in the midst And 

He said unto her. Woman, where are 

73 



N^EWYOEKITIS 



thine accusers? hath no man con- 
demned thee? She said, ]N'o man, 
Lord. And Jesus said unto her, 'Nei- 
ther do I condemn thee : go, and sin no 
more." 

In other words, when the Judge on 
this occasion called on some member 
of the vice committee to qualify as exe- 
cutioner, the committee sneaked out, 
one at a time. The court dismissed 
the case, and discharged the prisoner 
with the injunction to go and sin no 
more. 

To that class of which the vice com- 
mittee was composed He said: " Hypo- 
crites ! . . . Blind guides, which strain 
at a gnat, and swallow a camel." It 
would be interesting to know how 
many of our modern vice-hunters 
could pass this civil-service examina- 



74 



:^rEWYOEKITIS 



tion instituted by the Master, and thus 
make themselves eUgible to act as 
executioners. 

The moral insight of these patients 
is so blunted that they are unable to 
see a criminal if he is surrounded by 
a sufficient amount of wealth. A fine 
house, fine pictures, conservatories, 
gardens, and equipages, with conform- 
ity to the rules of so-called best so- 
ciety, and the observance of the out- 
ward forms and ceremonies of some 
church organization, are in themselves 
sufficient screens to guard the crim- 
inal who may be at their center from 
detection by the moral l^ewyorkitic. 
'No matter how these worldly goods 
were obtained, so long as their owner 
has managed to keep out of the toils 
of the law of man, he need have little 

75 



MOEAL SYMPTOMS 

of ccLclciLJiatioii bv the minis- 

ters of the law of God. The viee- 

hunters of 1901 ajd. are matiiig the 

siroe mistake that the viee-himters of 

32 AJ3. made. Thev besin at the 

Trrons: eiid c»f socierv: thev beiriii at 

the bottom of societv instead of at the 

top. "Wnat would be thought of a 

hnnter whc wasted his ammimition on 

chipnurnks. stonks. and woodchncks 

frhile lai^ge game scampered nnnotieed 

around him? Old hnnters sav that the 

noise and commotion cansed in de- 

stroTino: the larofe arame has a tendencv 

to fmrhten off the small srame. 
I- <— 

If onr modem reformers are sincere 
in their efforts to improve the moral 
atmosphere, let them not relax their 
present efforts, bnt in addition let ns 
have a vir-e committee 'w-h'i^se dntv it 



76 



MORAL SYMPTOMS 

shall be to gather evidence and find 
out if any among us are practising 
" excess and extortion " or are laying 
on "men's shoulders burdens grievous 
to be borne." Let us know, if any 
such exist, who they are, where their 
"places" are, and who is protecting 
them. 

Certainly this latter class, if it exists, 
received more pronounced condemna- 
tion by the Saviour of mankind and 
the founder of Christianity than ever 
did gamblers and harlots, and under 
present social conditions their power 
for WTong-doing is much greater than 
these. 

I am acquainted with a man who has 
lived for twenty-five years within the 
limits of that section of the city known 
as the Tenderloin, which is, by the way, 

77 



^EWYOKKITIS 



a favorite resort of ^N^ewyorkitic vice- 
hmiters. This gentleman has a family 
of sons and daughters who are grow- 
ing up to manhood and womanhood, 
and no one could be more interested in 
a pure moral atmosphere than he is. 
He says that brothels, gambling-houses, 
and pool-rooms have never cost him 
anything in a pecuniary way, nor have 
they ever degraded him morally, for 
the simple reason that he never enters 
these resorts. He does not even know 
of his own knowledge where one of these 
places is to be found. He says that 
no man is obliged to enter such resorts 
unless he wishes to do so. This gen- 
tleman says that he is, however, robbed 
every day. He says that every time 
he buys heat, light, food, and clothes 
for his family, he is robbed. These 



78 



MOEAL SYMPTOMS 

are games which he is obliged to pa- 
tronize. And he says that the bad part 
about it is that it is largely from money 
thus extorted from him, and from all 
consumers of the necessaries of life, 
that churches are built and the sala- 
ries of ^ewyorkitic clergymen are paid. 
This gentleman is thoroughly reliable 
even from the ISTewyorkitics' standpoint, 
for he is rated Al at the commercial 
agencies. 

This gentleman says that he cannot 
say his prayers in church Sunday morn- 
ings, because he sees men sitting in the 
Amen Corner, and carrying round the 
contribution-plate and the communion- 
cup, and looking sanctified, who are to 
his knowledge extortioners and crimi- 
nals; and the sight of them produces 
thoughts and feelings in his heart which 

79 



IS^EWYOEKITIS 



ought not to be there when one is trying 
to make an humble prayer to the kind 
Father for forgiveness and mercy and 
guidance. Let the vice-hunters and the 
experts in righteousness answer this 
question: Is it vice and is it crime for 
men to band themselves together and 
seize upon the necessaries of life — 
those physical blessings which the Al- 
mighty has given so bountifully to all 
His creatures — and dole them out to 
the people in quantities and at prices 
dictated only by cupidity? 

In the year 33 a.d., while the Sa- 
viour was still on earth in the flesh, He 
had the following to say of the vice-hun- 
ters and "business men" of Jerusalem: 
" They bind heavy burdens and griev- 
ous to be borne, and lay them on men's 
shoulders : but they themselves will not 



80 



MOEAL SYMPTOMS 

move them with one of their fingers. 
. . . For ye make clean the ontside of the 
cup and of the platter, but within they 
are full of extortion and excess." 

There is no intention of offering a 
defense of those who keep gambling- 
houses and brothels — and this includes 
all gambling-houses and houses of ill 
fame — where foolish men enter will- 
ingly and lose their money, and weak 
women lose their virtue. And there 
can be no defense of the politician or 
policeman who protects these resorts or 
accepts money from their keepers as a 
reward for not enforcing the laws of 
man against them. But there is less 
defense for churches or clergymen who 
give protection to those engaged in 
practising excess and extortion on their 
fellow-men. 

81 



]S^EWYOEKITIS 



Churches and clergymen are the 
spiritual guides of the people, and the 
ministers of God's laws; yet there are 
many among us who believe that they 
offer protection to extortioners by giv- 
ing them high places and making them 
dignitaries in the church, and accepting 
from them gifts which are the direct pro- 
ceeds of their unholy and unrighteous 
callings. 

Our modern vice-hunters have so far 
confined their efforts at reform to one 
or two kinds of gambling only. All 
gambling is bad, because it is such 
an effectual bar to the progress and 
development of those who engage in 

it. 

Some kinds of gambling are more 
destructive to man's best interests than 
other kinds, but the root of the evil is 



82 



MORAL SYMPTOMS 

the same in all. The man who loses a 
thousand dollars on a turn in the stock 
market, or on the turn of a card, not 
only suffers pain and mortification, but 
he gets no quid jyro quo of any sort. 
He learns nothing from the transaction, 
— unless perchance it teaches him never 
to repeat it, — and will be no better quali- 
fied to select the right card or horse or 
stock another time. 

If he fails in a legitimate business, 
and loses his money, after he has put 
forth an honest effort to make it a suc- 
cess, he yet has a reward in knowledge 
and experience from the labor expended, 
and can study the causes of his loss and 
failure, and is better equipped thereby 
for a second trial. 

The man who v/ins the thousand dol- 
lars has likewise been wronged and 

83 



IS^EWYOEKITIS 



cheated, and has lost his thne. His 
winning was an accident over which he 
had no control, nor did he exercise any 
skill or knowledge to bring abont the 
result, and he has therefore learned no- 
thing which will aid him in controlling 
the results in other and similar trans- 
actions. If a thousand dollars comes 
into your possession, and does not bring 
with it the training, discipline, and de- 
veloping influences which justly belong 
to the honest earning of it by the exer- 
cise of skill or knowledge of some kind, 
then you have been cheated out of the 
best part of that thousand dollars. That 
thousand-dollar bill you hold in your 
hand is spurious; it is a counterfeit — 
not a thousand dollars at all to you, its 
so-called owner. You have been de- 
prived of the elevating and evoluting 



84 



MOEAL SYMPTOMS 

influences which are inseparable from 
the labor necessary to honestly acquire 
that amount of money. 

The young man from a king-ridden 
and church-ridden country lands as an 
immigrant on these shores. He is dressed 
in his native uncouth costume, and he 
bears all the marks of his oppressive 
environment. He goes to work at the 
best wages he can get. In time he 
saves twenty dollars, and with it buys 
himself a complete suit of modern 
clothes. When he puts that suit on, 
he puts on much more than twenty 
dollars. He puts on with it a certain 
amount of self-respect and personal in- 
dependence, born of the toil and self- 
denial which enabled him to buy it. 
Would he have walked forth with the 
same sensations had he found that suit 

85 



IN^EWYOEKITIS 



in the street, or had it been presented 
to him on the day he landed? This is 
an illustration taken from down the 
line, I admit; but it nevertheless illus- 
trates the educating and culturing 
power of honest labor. 

But the evil effects of gambling do 
not end here. Winner and loser are 
alike unfitted for performing honest 
labor for just rewards. Who cannot 
recall among his acquaintances trades- 
men, professional men, men of every 
calling, who have been ruined by Wall 
Street, the race-track, or the gambling- 
house! Not ruined because they won 
or lost money at these games, but 
ruined because they became totally un- 
fitted for any occupation which would 
render them of use to themselves or to 
their fellow-men. 



86 



MORAL SYMPTOMS 

I knoAV of no way to determine how 
bad a given form of gambling is except 
by comparing its destructive effects 
with other kinds of gambling. If this 
is a safe rule, then stock gambling is the 
worst of all, for it has brought more 
wide-spread grief and sorrow than any 
other form. More reputations have 
been blasted, more men who occupied 
positions of trust and usefulness have 
been sent to State's prison or made 
fugitives from justice, more brilliant ca- 
reers of usefulness have been destroyed, 
and more of other people's money has 
been lost, as a result of stock gambling, 
than by all the gambling-houses and 
pool-rooms in ^ew York put together. 
Yet stock gambling is eminently re- 
spectable from the standpoint of the 
moral ^NTewyorkitic. 

87 



ISTEWYORKITIS 



The moral IS'ewyorkitic has all kinds 
of confused and absurd imaginings 
about charities and missions. His 
charitable and missionary work par- 
takes too much of the character of 
pernicious activity. It is simply the 
better-than-thouness of the better-than- 
thou in active operation. The annual 
check of a Newyorkitic to charity or- 
ganizations is the purchase of an in- 
dulgence. It permits him to be un- 
charitable to his brothers in thought, 
deed, and feeling for that year, and 
still retain high standing in so-called 
"best society" and in his IS'ewyork- 
itic church. If this check to char- 
ity is sufficiently large, it permits the 
]S"ewyorkitic to "sit in the seat of 
the scornful" and of the oppressor 
for six days of the week, and in the 



88 



MOKAL SYMPTOMS 

seat of a church dignitary on the 
seventh. 

And there will not be anything said 
from the pulpit calculated to disturb 
his serenity ; if there is, it will be the 
clergyman's serenity that gets dis- 
turbed, and not the Newyorkitic's. The 
pulpits of two of the richest churches 
in this city have been vacant for a long 
time, notwithstanding the fact that 
each one has a fifteen-thousand-dollar- 
a-year " call " with it. A member of 
one of these churches gave me a clear 
explanation of the difficulty the other 
day ; he said : " The clerg^Tiien whom 
the congregation wanted to fill the 
pulpit would n't come, and those that 
would come the devil would n't have; 
so there you are." 

Each church organization struggles 

89 



NEWYOEKITIS 



to attract people to adopt its particular 
creed or dogma, and come into its fold. 
It is not essential that you shall lead a 
Chi^stian life. That is a mere matter 
of personal taste. The ^ewyorkitic 
says: "Be one of tis^ one of our 
denomination, and go through the 
forms and ceremonies prescribed by 
our church one day in the week; that 
is all." 

It is like when a boy first goes to 
college. He is beset on all sides by 
the different societies and college fra- 
ternities, each wanting him for a mem- 
ber. Nobody asks what sort of a student 
he is going to be. The boy is justified 
in believing that the principal object in 
matriculating was to be able to join a 
college fraternity. 

In these days of trusts, combines. 



90 



MORAL SYMPTOMS 

and monopolies, it is surprising that 
the churches do not unite. The sinner- 
saving business is one of the very few 
in which open competition still exists. 
There are the High-church people and 
the Low-church people, the predesti- 
nation interests and the close-commu- 
nion interests, and the eternal-punish- 
ment plants. One would think that 
these could all unite on some such 
simple agreement as : " To love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy 
strength, and with all thy mind; and 
thy neighbor as thyself." 

The " business interests " of the 
country have been able to adjust their 
differences and form perfect combina- 
tions for mutual benefit. But the IS^ew- 
yorkitic influences in the various church 

91 



I^EWYOEKITIS 



organizations have, so far, blocked 
church union. 

The churches are sadly in need of 
adopting some kind of new and im- 
proved methods. Newyorkitic man- 
agement is incompetent. This is es- 
pecially apparent in the competition 
which is ever going on between them 
and the saloons. Walk through a street 
in the tenement-house district on the 
great East Side. You find from one 
to three drinking-saloons on each block. 
Go inside of one of them on a cold win- 
ter's day, when the wind from the icy 
river seems to penetrate to the very mar- 
row of your bones. You find in the 
center of the room a red-hot stove, 
comfortable chairs, tables for playing 
cards and dominoes, with a slate and 
piece of chalk for marking the game, 



92 



MORAL SYMPTOMS 

and the morning papers. Outside, by 
the door, stands the free-lunch bulletin- 
board. Written on it with chalk are 
such announcements as: 



FREE LUNCH TO-DAY 



HOT BEEF STEW 
HOT CLAM CHOAVDER 



The poor, half -clad, friendless sinner 
who trudges this cheerless street, on 
whose back, and the backs of his kind, 
have been placed "burdens grievous to 
be borne," can have all this comfort if he 
will come in and spend for beer the few 
cents he has been able to earn, steal, or 
beg. And he would not be human if he 
did not go in. 

'Now walk through the fashionable 
streets and avenues, and inspect the 



93 



XEWYORKITIS 



churches which are tninof to o:et the 
smners away from the saloon influence. 
There is a magnificent church building 
on nearly eyery block. Inside, they 
are dark, and cold, and cheerless. The 
doors are barred, and a great iron fence 
with locked gates surrounds them. A 
poor, tired, soul-weary sinner passing 
that way could not break into one of 
them mth a jimmy; and if he did, he 
would get himself arrested, and sent 
to State's prison. The churches haye out 
bulletin-boards, too. But the legend on 
them neyer yaries. You read, in beau- 
tiful gold letters, something like this: 



JOHX JOXES 
Sextox AXT) UxT)ERTAIvER 

Xo. 200 CoEFix Street 
91 



MOEAL SYMPTOMS 

For six days of the week these mag- 
nificent structures serve no otlier pur- 
pose than as sign-boards to direct the 
passer-by to a man who w^ill bury him 
properly, if he has got the money to pay 
for that service. But, thank God ! there 
are a few of the houses dedicated to His 
service which are kept open all the time : 
where one can enter at any hour, and 
rest and meditate and pray, and get ac- 
quainted with one's self, and go away 
refreshed in soul and body. 

The millionaire ^N^ewyorkitics have 
a fad which has become popular of 
late. This fad is the founding of 
colleges and libraries in various towns 
throughout the country. In other 
words, they take a very small percent- 
age of the money they have been able 
to extort f]*om the people through vi- 

95 



NEWYOEKITIS 



cious legislation and non-enforcement 
of the laws against grand larceny, and 
give it back to them in the form of 
libraries, colleges, hospitals, etc. 

Of course this is not charity, for any 
one familiar with real charity as taught 
by the Saviour knows that you cannot 
measure a man's charity by studying 
the stubs of his check-book. The most 
charitable man who ever walked this 
earth had no money and no check-book. 
And money given as charity to some 
people, which was obtained by wrong 
and uncharitableness to other people, is 
" as sounding brass or a tinkling cym- 
bal." It maybe said that this founding 
of libraries and colleges by I^ew^^ork- 
itic millionaires is an instance of good 
coming out of evil. Perhaps so; but 
our point is that it is not charity: for 

9G 



MORAL SYMPTOMS 

at no time or place did Christ teach us 
to do evil that good might come of it. 

But there are good reasons, from 
the standpoint of the Newyorkitic, for 
founding libraries and colleges among 
the people. These patients are in much 
the same position before the public that 
a juggler is before his audience. The 
juggler has the band play low, soft 
music, and he keeps up a steady conver- 
sation while performing his sleight-of- 
hand tricks. The music and the talk are 
intended to distract the attention of the 
audience from his manipulations, and 
thus prevent them from discovering 
and exposing his methods of deceiving 
them. 

The I^ewyorkitic millionaire does, in 
effect, the same thing. He beats the 
tom-tom over his gifts and donations. 

97 



:n^ewyoekitis 



He has gallons of printers' ink used in 
announcing his plans for helping man- 
kind. He writes books and magazine 
articles and gives interviews about the 
duties and obligations of the rich. All 
this distracts the attention of the pub- 
lic from the vital question. Like the 
juggler, all this high-sounding talk, 
and these fairy stories about what he 
calls success, and the obligations of 
the rich, etc., keep the people inter- 
ested in liim^ and what he is doifig 
with his millions, and take their atten- 
tion away from how he is getting his 
millions. 

The daily press is filled with an- 
nouncements of gifts and donations. 
Lettei-s and checks giving away mil- 
lions in the name of charity are repro- 
duced in facsimile ad nauseam. The 



98 



MOEAL SYMPTOMS 

following words of Jesus, in the sixth 
chapter of Matthew's Gospel, seem to 
be entirely forgotten by moral JSTew- 
yorkitics : " Take heed that ye do not 
your alms before men, to be seen of 
them: otherwise ye have no reward 
of your Father which is in heaven. 
Therefore when thou doest thine alms, 
do not sound a trumpet before thee, as 
the hypocrites do in the synagogues 
and in the streets, that they may have 
glory of men." 

We have no vital statistics of Pales- 
tine at the time that Jesus lived and 
traveled through that country. We do 
not know what percentage of the 
inhabitants were sick or died during 
those years. But we do know from 
the gospels that the whole number of 
those who received His active charity 

L.tfC. 99 



IS^EWYORKITIS 



in the healing of their diseases, and 
being raised from the dead, must have 
been a small percentage of those who 
were ill and died around Him during 
His ministry. The point is, that He was 
never officious in His efforts to do good. 
His active charitv was confined to a few : 
li^\?>'passive charity was extended to every 
human being on the planet. 

He never went looking for sick peo- 
ple to heal, or dead people to raise, or 
hungry thousands to feed with loaves 
and fishes ; they or their friends had to 
come to Him. He never swerved from 
His course except when properly ap- 
proached, and then He never failed to 
give prompt relief, not stopping to " in- 
vestigate the cause" of the sufferer's 
plight, as do some of our modern char- 
ity organizations. The one great thing 



100 



MOKAL SYMPTOMS 

which the moral I^ewyorkitic needs to 
learn about charity is, not alone to do 
things for people, but to quit doing 
things to people. 

But this founding of libraries and 
colleges by IS^ewyorkitic millionaires 
has a bit of grim humor in it, and 
is essentially poetic justice. Colleges 
and libraries are places where people 
go to learn things. And the presump- 
tion is that his dealing with the masses 
has satisfied the millionaire that they 
are stupid and sadly in need of en- 
lightenment and knowledge; hence the 
colleges and libraries. 

But the millionaire of to-day shows 
little regard for the millionaire of the 
future. In fact, the profession of mil- 
lionairism is a good deal like the pro- 
fession of medicine in one respect. 

101 



:n^ewyoekitis 



The doctors are busy trying to find 
out how to jyrevent disease, and the 
logic of it is that in future generations 
there will be no disease, and of course 
no doctors can exist. And if the mod- 
ern professional millionaires fill the 
country with libraries and colleges, — 
and it can only hold a certain number, 
— then this field of action will be closed 
to the future millionaire. 

Besides, if the people should take to 
using these colleges and libraries, and 
should become sufficiently enlightened 
and thoughtful so that they would 
cease being interested and entertained 
by what he does with his millions and 
begin to study how the millionaire gets 
his millions, it is possible that this 
profession would also cease to exist. 

I am acquainted with a reformed 



102 



MORAL SYMPTOMS 



millionaire. He got his millions by 
inducing the people of various towns 
and cities to present him with valu- 
able franchises which permitted him 
to build and operate car lines in their 
streets. Before his franchise was valid, 
he had, in each instance, to get the 
consent of two thirds of the property- 
owners along the streets he wished to 
build in. " I often wondered," he said, 
" at the readiness with which men signed 
away to me, for nothing, their valuable 
assets in the streets in front of their 
property. IS^obody seemed to be aware 
of the fact that the value of real estate 
on a given street does not terminate at 
the building-line." 

A moral I^ewyorkitic wishes only to 
be called religious ; whether he is inno- 
cent or not is of little consequence to 

103 



IS^EWYOKKITIS 



him. He cannot see that no man or set 
of men are fit to renovate or reform 
abuses around them until they have 
renovated and reformed themselves and 
their own set. They wonder, for in- 
stance, why the Chinese do not take 
more kindly to Christianizing influ- 
ence; but they never see the absurd 
and ludicrous position in which an 
American missionary is placed when he 
asks a Chinaman to adopt his religion 
and to go to his heaven after death, 
when the Chinaman is not permitted to 
live in the missionary's country while 
on earth. 

When speaking of the mental phe- 
nomena of IS'ewyorkitis I pointed out 
the fact that mental contraction is 
the most marked and characteristic of 
this class of symptoms. The measure 



104 



MOKAL SYMPTOMS 

of a mind is the circumference of its 
greatest circle or horizon of thought. 
These patients cannot think widely be- 
cause they do most of their thinking 
with the reflex nervous system. They 
are thus unable to get a mental grasp 
of the planet we are on. To think of 
this earth and its billion and a half 
of inhabitants as a whole, is utterly 
beyond the mental capacity of one of 
these patients. 

This same tendency to contraction is 
found when we study the moral symp- 
toms of ISTewyorkitis. The measure of 
a man's religion — that is, the extent 
to which he lives up to the teachings 
of Jesus — is to be found in the breadth 
of his mantle of love and charity. It 
all depends on hoAV much of these 
he habitually exercises in word, deed, 

105 



]^EWYORKITIS 



thought, and feeling toward all his fel- 
low human beings, regardless of race, 
color, or the part of the planet on 
which they happen to reside, and to 
what extent he is willing to accord 
to all others the rights, privileges, and 
blessings, both spiritual and material, 
which he demands for himself. 

These patients suffer from other 
pronounced moral delusions. They 
imagine, for instance, that the rules 
of common honesty and "business in- 
tegrity," which they insist upon to the 
letter when individuals deal with each 
other, do not apply when a groujo of 
individuals deals with another group of 
individuals. They cannot be brought 
to see that a nation is only a group of 
individuals, and that a group dealing 
with another group is bound by the 



106 



MORAL SYMPTOMS 

same laws of honesty, "business in- 
tegrity," and Christian fair dealing as 
apply to the individuals composing the 
groups. 

On the contrary, when their nation 
by fraud and deception gains an advan- 
tage over another nation, they shout 
themselves hoarse over what they call 
"clever diplomacy." And when their 
armies crush and destroy a weaker na- 
tion, murdering the men, burning their 
homes, and driving the women and 
children into the jungle to starve and 
die, they call it military glory. They 
throw the teachings of Jesus to the 
winds, and hide their cupidity and 
covetousness behind their pretended 
love of country and worship of its flag. 
These patients cannot see that a nation 
cannot wrong another nation without 

107 



^EWYOEKITIS 



suffering for it any more than an indi- 
vidual can wrong another individual 
and not pay the penalty. 

When you tell one of these patients 
that a man or a collection of men had 
far better suffer a wrong than wilfully 
to wrong some one else, he thinks you 
a fit subject for a hospital for the in- 
sane. A moral I^ewyorkitic seems to 
learn nothing from history and obser- 
vation of the laws that govern right 
and wrong. He does not see that these 
moral laws are as fatal, and as certain 
of self-execution, as are any of the 
laws in the physical universe. Ex- 
plain to him that if he fastens one end 
of a chain about the neck of a man the 
other end of that chain inevitably fas- 
tens itself in one form or another about 
his own neck, and that this law holds 



108 



MOEAL SYMPTOMS 

as good for nations as for individuals, 
and he only thinks how this proposi- 
tion affects his individual bank-account 
and the " business interests " of the 
country. 

This nation, by force, held the black 
race in slavery for a hundred years. 
The motive for this was selfishness and 
greed. The white man wanted to get 
the black man's labor for nothing. The 
wrongs, and griefs, and sorrows, and 
prayers of these black people finally 
reached the ears of Him whose teach- 
ings we pretend to follow, and who dis- 
poses of the affairs of men and of na- 
tions; and awful vengeance followed, 
and no man can calculate the cost in 
blood and treasure and sorrow which 
this nation had to pay. And now, nearly 
forty years after this crime ceased, the 

109 



ISTEWYOKKITIS 



white people of a whole section of the 
country continue to suffer in many ways 
as a result of it, and the sins of the fathers 
continue to be visited on the children 
to the third and fourth generation. 

But the I^ewyorkitic learns nothing* 
from this example of the operation of 
the Divine law, although it took place in 
his own time and directly under his eyes. 
He only laughs at you, and if he happens 
to be in a state of excitement and exal- 
tation, which is common among persons 
of unsound mind, he abuses you and 
calls you a " traitor " when you tell him 
that this nation is again engaged in 
wronging a colored people. He turns 
a deaf ear Avhen you tell him that 
covetousness — a desire to possess their 
lands, mines, franchises, and cheap la- 
bor — is the motive for the war car- 



110 



MORAL SYMPTOMS 



ried on by this nation against the in- 
habitants of the Philippine Islands, and 
that the people of the United States 
will sooner or later be made to suffer 
in some sort for the wrongs done to 
these brown people, just as they were 
made to suffer for the wrong done to 
the black people. 

'New discoveries and new inventions 
in the material world have followed 
each other so rapidly that they have 
turned the heads of these patients. 
They imagine that the Sermon on the 
Mount, the Ten Commandments, the 
Declaration of Independence, and the 
Constitution of the United States may 
have been useful in the days of the 
stage-coach and pony express, but that 
they are out of date now. 

^ewyorkitics cannot see that no 

111 



ISTEWYOKKITIS 



amount of material evolution, or so- 
called new commercial and social con- 
ditions, can set aside the law of right 
and wrong, or can enable men or na- 
tions to escape the rewards and pun- 
ishments which are inseparable from 
this law. As well imagine that the 
law of gravitation was any less fatal 
in the days of the cave-dwellers than 
in this day of steam and electricity, 
or will be less when aerial navigation 
is an accomplished fact. 

All intention of entering into politi- 
cal discussion in these pages is dis- 
claimed. If social and political ques- 
tions are touched upon, it is merely 
incidental in describing the phenomena 
of the disease under consideration. 
And in studying moral sanity or in- 
sanity we are obliged to have respect 



112 



MOEAL SYMPTOMS 

to the moral law as set forth in reve- 
lation, and as we see its operation in 
the history of individuals and of na- 
tions. 

In some parts of the world, in Siam 
for instance, the people worship and 
hold sacred the white elephant. There 
are dun elephants which can do every- 
thing that a white elephant can do, but 
the people for generations have suf- 
fered from the illusion that the white 
elephant possesses certain inherent vir- 
tues not possessed by any other mem- 
ber of the animal kingdom. They 
have worshiped it so long that the 
delusion has become a fixed and un- 
thinking fetish with them. And the 
priests who are materially benefited 
by the prevalence of this doctrine will 
kill you if you attempt to dispel the 

113 



:^rEWYOKKITIS 



illusion. The ^ewyorkitic suffers from 
a similar illusion about one of the 
metals, namely, gold. You cannot get 
it out of his mind that this one member 
of the mineral kingdom possesses cer- 
tain intrinsic virtues not possessed by 
any other metal. 

A moral ^N'ewyorkitic will go to 
church Sunday morning, and drone out, 
" Thou shalt not make unto thee any 
graven image, or any likeness of any- 
thing that is in heaven above, or that 
is in the earth beneath, or that is in the 
water under the earth: thou shalt not 
bow down thyself to them, nor serve 
them," and for the remaining six days 
of the week he worships gold, and he 
will break the other nine command- 
ments in his efforts to get it. If you 
suggest to him that his affection for 



114 



MOEAL SYMPTOMS 

this particular metal is an illusion, you 
are fortunate if he applies no stronger 
epithet than " crank " to you. 

There is another curious and inter- 
esting phenomenon connected with this 
disease. And this symptom is espe- 
cially marked in those cases where the 
patient is a " business man." A " busi- 
ness man " suffering from JSTewyorkitis 
may have the very highest rating in 
the " business world." He prides him- 
self that his word is as good as his 
bond. He boasts of his high standard 
of business integrity. He promptly 
pays in full every just pecuniary claim 
against him, except one — that is, taxes. 
He will resort to any expedient, even 
to bribery and false swearing, to avoid 
paying his j)^o rata for the support 
of the government he lives under 

115 



NEWYOEKITIS 



and which protects him. The very 
system of taxation which his vote and 
influence helped to establish he de- 
frauds without suffering a qualm of 
conscience. Such a patient as we are 
describing would feel nothing but con- 
tempt for a man who failed to pay his 
annual dues and house-account to a 
social club, but his high standard of 
business integrity goes all to pieces 
when it comes to paying his annual 
dues and house-account to his govern- 
ment. His patriotism, about which he 
talks so loudly on occasion, ends when 
the tax-gatherer calls. 



116 



THE PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS OF 
]S[EWYORKITIS 



THE 

PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS OF 

NEWYOKKITIS 

THE physical or somatic symptoms 
of ^ewyorkitis are not, as a rule, 
so constant, so pronounced, and so 
characteristic as are the mental and 
moral phenomena. As we have seen, 
the disease is essentially a functional 
disorder of the brain and nervous sys- 
tem, and a degeneration of the moral 
standard. 

But there are certain physical signs 
in [N^ewyorkitis which are worthy of 
consideration. 

Rapidity and nervousness and lack 
of deliberation in all muscular move- 

119 



IS^EWYOEKITIS 



ments are prominent symptoms. This 
is especially marked in the patient's 
walk, and in all movements where the 
feet and legs are involved. 

When a Newyorkitic walks the 
streets of another town or city, he 
passes other persons walking in the 
same direction. The constant neces- 
sity of dodging cable-cars on his is- 
land, and prompt obedience to the oft- 
repeated order of the conductors to 
"Step lively!" doubtless accounts, in 
part at least, for the characteristic 
rapid foot action of a Newyorkitic. 

Another physical symptom of ISTew- 
yorkitis which is present in many cases 
is near-sightedness. The walls of the 
high buildings which line the streets 
of ^ew York City effectually limit the 
field of vision. The only opportunity 



120 



PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS 

for using the eyes for distant vision is 
to look up at the sky, and these pa- 
tients rarely look in that direction. 
The constant use of the eyes for see- 
ing at short distances results in weak- 
ening, from want of use, the muscular 
apparatus which adjusts the eye for 
seeing at long distances. So when the 
patient has an opportunity, at sea or in 
the country, of wide vision, he finds 
that he has lost the power of ad- 
justing his eyes to the widened ho- 
rizon. This fact can be easily demon- 
strated by comparing the ability of a 
]S^ew3^orkitic for detecting objects at a 
distance with that of a ranchman or a 
professional sailor. It is a curious and 
interesting fact that this physical short- 
sightedness is closely allied to the con- 
tracted mental horizon referi'ed to when 

121 



IS^EWYORKITIS 



describing the mental symptoms of this 
disease. 

These patients also have a habit of 
reading the newspapers while traveling 
on the cars. And the bad light, and 
lurching and jolting of the car, make 
it difficult to follow the printed lines, 
and this fact doubtless has much to do 
with the large percentage of eye trou- 
bles among these patients. 

Flat-foot cannot be called a charac- 
teristic symptom of JSTewyorkitis, be- 
cause it is frequently seen in persons 
who are free from the disease, but it is 
so common in ^ewvorkitis that it 
deserves mention among the physical 
symptoms. Flat-foot is a breaking 
down of the bony arch of the instep. 
It results in partial destruction of the 
natural curve of the instep, and causes 



122 



PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS 

the foot to appear as if it was fastened 
at a right angle to the lower end of the 
leg. This collapse of the arch also de- 
stroys or fills up the natural hollow of 
the foot, so that when a person with 
flat-foot walks, " the hollow of the foot 
makes a hole in the ground." 

We have already referred to the ra- 
pidity with which persons suffering 
from I^ewyorkitis walk over the hard 
street pavements. This doubtless ac- 
counts for the frequent occurrence of 
flat-foot in this affection. 

In advanced cases of JN^ewyorkitis 
there is always perversion of the appe- 
tite and of the sense of taste. The ap- 
petite has to be aroused and the gastric 
juices started flowing by a cocktail, or 
some other irritating drink, before each 
meal. The desire for food is natural 

123 



:newyoekitis 



and physiological, and when in a nor-* 
mal condition the stomach announces 
the fact that the human engine, of 
which it is the fire-box, is in need of 
fuel by naturally pouring out the gas- 
tric juice, and irritating the nerve ter- 
minations in the stomach-wall, and 
the individual becomes conscious of a 
desire for food, or an appetite, and 
proceeds to satisfy it. 

This natural recurrence of the nor- 
mal appetite is forestalled and finally 
destroyed by taking into the empty 
stomach cocktails and other mixed and 
irritating drinks, and in advanced cases 
of ISTewyorkitis it is doubtful if the pa- 
tient ever has an entirely healthy and nor- 
mal appetite, but is obliged at all times 
to resort to the use of artificial irritation 
to start the flow of the gastric juice. 



124 



PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS 

Whisky and other spirituous liquors, 
thoroughly diluted with water, are not 
irritating to the stomach-wall, or only 
slightly so, and taken in moderation 
when the stomach is not empty they 
are possibly slight aids to digestion. 
But they are not appetite-creators, 
and therefore do not meet the require- 
ments of a ISTewyorkitic. All those who 
drink cocktails are not advanced New- 
yorkitics, any more than all those who 
have gray hair are suffering from old 
age; but using cocktails to arouse the 
appetite is one of the group of symp- 
toms of ]N^ewyorkitis, just as gray hair 
is one of the signs of old age. 

In Newyorkitis the palate demands 
that the food shall be of great variety 
and highly spiced. The patient likes 
the table d'hote, with its variety of 

125 



:n^ewyoekitis 



dishes, each one so spiced and smo- 
thered in hot sauces, dressings, etc., 
that the real make-up of the dish is lost. 
Deviled kidneys, Welsh rarebit hot 
with mustard, and oyster cocktails 
are also favorite dishes. In treating 
these patients, they complain bitterly 
of having to give up this favorite 
diet, and it is difficult to get them to 
stick to such plain and simple food 
as roast beef, bacon, hominy, steak, 
milk, and brown bread, and to lay 
aside the irritating cocktail and ab- 
sinthe. 

Reference has already been made 
to the highly stimulating character of 
the mental pabulum demanded by these 
patients. Their physical tastes and 
appetites are of the same character. 

Another one of the live senses is 



126 



PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS 

always more or less affected in 'New- 
Yorkitis, namely, the sense of hearing. 

Boilerinahers^ disease is a conges- 
tion amounting sometimes to chronic 
inflammation of the middle ear. It is 
caused by the shock and irritation of 
noise, and those who work in boiler 
factories are frequently found to suffer 
from it ; hence the name. But any kind 
of noise, if sufficiently constant and 
discordant, can produce it. What is 
thus described in the books as holler- 
makers'^ disease is not an uncommon 
condition in !Newyorkitis. This symp- 
tom is, of course, the result of exposure 
to the din and roar, the screams and 
yells, which go on in the streets at 
nearly all hours of the day and night. 

The high walls of the houses also 
play an important part in producing 

127 



]SrEWYOEKITIS 



this s^Tiiptom, for they reflect the noise 
and cause the sound-waves to rever- 
berate back and forth many times, thus 
greatly increasing the evil effects of a 
single discordant sound on the ears. 
The capacity of city streets for trans- 
mitting and intensif^dng sounds is 
shown in the great distance at which 
the rap of a policeman's club on the 
pavement can be heard. The patient 
in the street surrounded on three sides 
by solid walls is somewhat in the posi- 
tion of the boilermaker who hammers 
rivets on the inside of the boiler, so 
far as intensification of the noise is 
concerned. Thus careful examination 
of the ears will show that in some 
cases of ISTewyorkitis the sense of hear- 
ing is more or less defective. 

The Newyorkitic has become so ac- 



128 



PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS 

customed to noise that he requires it at 
all times, even at his meals. The per- 
fect digestion and assimilation of food 
requires that during meals and for half 
or three quarters of an hour after- 
ward the senses and the emotions 
should be at rest and free from excite- 
ment of all kinds. But in the last few 
years, since ISTewyorkitis has become so 
common, every restaurant and eating- 
house which caters to the "best peo- 
ple " seems obliged to have a band of 
music to play during meal-hours. 

I^asal and nasopharyngeal catarrh 
is also frequently found. This is 
caused by the extreme and sudden 
changes of temperature, by badly ven- 
tilated and overheated houses and 
apartments, and by general ignorance 
and negligence of proper body sanitation. 

129 



CLIKICAL EEPORTS OF 
NEWYORKITIS 



clinical eepoets of 
:n^ewyoekitis 

THE three typical cases of New- 
yorkitis which are reported below 
have been selected almost at random 
from the thousands of cases which 
have come under the author's observa- 
tion and of which he has made mental 
notes. 

Case I. Male, aged fifty years, mar- 
ried, born in 'New York City. The 
family history of this patient shows 
that he was one of five children. His 
parents were plain, honest, thrifty peo- 
ple, exhibiting no signs of !Newyorkitis, 

133 



]S^EWYORKITIS 



nor can any case be found in the three 
generations of ancestors of which rec- 
ords could be had. His brothers and 
sisters are all living, and free from the 
disease, except one brother, who has a 
mild form; but it is plain that heredity 
plays no part in this case. This patient 
married, at twenty-five, a Newyorkitic 
of about his own age, and after living 
together for four years the wife ob- 
tained a divorce. They had no chil- 
dren, she lavishing her maternal affec- 
tion on a poodle-dog. After the patient 
was divorced, he spent five years in 
idleness and dissipation, and then 
eloped with the young JS'ewyorkitic 
wife of an old man. General paresis 
attacked the patient a few years later, 
and he died of this disease in his fiftieth 
year. This patient had many of the 

134 



CLi:NriCAL REPOETS 

typical delusions and hallucinations of 
!Newyorkitis. He had a low moral 
standard. He had entirely discarded 
the religious training of his youth, and 
was a pronounced disbeliever in the 
power of everything except dollars. 
Like the Siamese, who attach intrinsic 
virtues to the white elephant over all 
other beasts, this patient imagined that 
the metal gold possessed intrinsic value 
not possessed by any other metal. The 
physical symptoms already described 
were well developed in this case. 

Case H. Male, aged sixty, clergy- 
man, born of healthy parents in an 
adjoining State, married, no children. 
This patient came to Manhattan Island 
when thirty years of age, as assistant 
to the pastor of a fashionable church. 

135 



:newyorkitis 



Later he was " called " to take entire 
charge of a church. He began to show 
signs of ISTewyorkitis soon after taking 
up his residence in the city, and the 
disease has steadily increased until, at 
present, his is a most pronounced case, 
with practically no hope of recovery. 
It is of the " moral " type, as is usual 
in cases of IN^ewyorkitis in clergy- 
men. At times he becomes violent and 
excited, especially when speaking of 
those who differ from him in opinion. 
On one occasion he was seized with a 
fit of narrow bigotry and uncharitable- 
ness to the opinions of others, in the 
midst of a sermon. Speaking of the 
" attempts " of six and a half millions of 
his fellow-countrymen to establish cer- 
tain principles of government in which 
they honestly believed, he said: "I 



136 



CLINICAL EEPOETS 

dare in God's pulpit to brand such at- 
tempts as accursed and treasonable." 
This statement, of course, amounts to 
nothing except as an illustration of a 
phase of the disease I am writing about. 
It is of interest only as an illustra- 
tion of the contracted love horizon and 
thought horizon of the patient; just 
as the statement of a general paretic, 
that he can crush the skull of a horse 
with a single blow of his fist, is inter- 
esting only as exhibiting the presence 
of general paresis with its delusions of 
grandeur. 

This patient's opposition to individ- 
uals who, through poverty, ignorance, 
and bad example of the "better 
classes," are guilty of small crimes and 
vices, knows no bounds. But with pen 
and tongue and vote he supports a 

137 



ISTEWYOEKITIS 



great, rich, powerful, so-called Chris- 
tian nation in breaking the command- 
ments which say : " Thou shalt not kill " ; 
" Thou shalt not steal " ; " Thou shalt 
not covet." 

Short-sightedness was the only phys- 
ical symptom present in this case. 

Case III. Male, aged forty-six, mar- 
ried, born in 'New York City. This 
case is of special interest, because it 
illustrates how Newyorkitis, like other 
chronic diseases, is sometimes cured by 
a sudden injury or shock to the patient. 
The parents of this patient showed no 
signs of I^^ewyorkitis. They were 
honest, frugal, hard-working shopkeep- 
ers, and accumulated a fortune which 
was called large in their day, and 
which was inherited by the patient, he 

138 



CLINICAL REPOKTS 

being the only child. He attended a 
modern college, along with the sons of 
other rich men, where drinking, card- 
playing, football, boating, and other 
" sports," athletic and otherwise, re- 
ceived far more attention than did 
Latin or Greek or mathematics; in 
fact, books were very much of a side 
issue. The faculty of the college, as 
usual, could not interfere, as this would 
drive away wealthy young men and 
their fathers' donations. The patient 
contracted his ^ewyorkitis while at 
college, receiving the infection from 
other cases with whom he associated. 
The disease developed rapidly. After 
going through all the forms and cere- 
monies of attending college for four 
years, and of graduation, the patient 
returned to the city a most pronounced 

139 



]N^EWYOEKITIS 



Newyorkitic. He showed all the men- 
tal and moral symptoms of a typical 
case. He would spend weeks m the 
country, wearing a red coat and other 
ridiculous clothes, mounted on a horse 
which he rode at breakneck speed 
hither and thither, trying to catch a 
bag of anise-seed; all the time imagin- 
ing that he was in England and after a 
fox. When in town, he spent his time 
in the clubs, drinking, and gambling at 
cards, or hanging over the " stock 
ticker," as he always had a few hun- 
dred shares on margin. He wore a 
monocle, and cultivated an English 
drawl. His clothes were made in Lon- 
don. He was more familiar with Eu- 
ropean cities than with New York. He 
had traveled all over the Old World, 
but had seen nothinof of the United 



140 



CLI]^ICAL KEPORTS 

States, never leaving Manhattan Island 
except in summer, when he went to his 
country house on Long Island, or 
cruised in his yacht on the Sound. 
The only exception was once when he 
traveled to Philadelphia to attend the 
funeral of an aunt who had remem- 
bered him in her will, and this trip was 
" a most infernal bore." Manhattan 
Island represented to him the whole of 
his native country, or all of it worth 
his consideration. 

He had a large collection of ancient 
armor displayed in a room built for 
that purpose in his country house. He 
was in the habit of having his valet 
dress him in a suit of this armor, and 
with sword and lance he would strut 
in front of a mirror, imagining himself 
a valiant English knight of the Eliza- 

141 



ISTEWYOEKITIS 



bethan period. On one of these occa- 
sions he fell down a whole flight of 
stairs, landing on his head in the 
marble hall. The metal helmet was 
dented in against his sknll, cansing a 
dangerous and painful injury. 

The fastenings of the armor got 
jammed, and the valet could not get it 
off, so the patient, unable to rise, had 
to remain lying on the cold marble 
floor for upward of an hour, until the 
valet could run to the neighboring vil- 
lage and fetch a plumber, who, with 
hammer and cold-chisel, extricated him. 
The patient was badly stunned. This, 
with the exposure while waiting for 
the plumber, brought on an attack of 
pachymeningitis. He was unconscious 
and delirious for two weeks, and it was 
several months before convalescence 



142 



CLIIN^ICAL KEPOETS 



was fully established. When the pa- 
tient was finally able to go out, he was 
a changed man. He altered his habits 
and associations. He forsook the soci- 
ety of Newyorkitics, and sought that of 
sensible men. He traveled over his own 
country, studied its needs, resources, 
and institutions, and began to develop. . 
His Newyorkitis gradually disap- 
peared, and at the present writing he 
occupies an important public position, 
and has become an honored and useful 
citizen. 



143 



THE TEEATME:^rT OF 
IS^EWYOEKITIS 



THE TREATMENT OF 
NEWYORKITIS 

THE treatment of Newyorkitis may 
be summed up in one word : culture. 
And the term is used here in its widest 
signification. Most men are born with 
a bias, more or less pronounced, of one 
kind or another. Each one has a 
talent for doing a certain kind of work, 
and this talent too often makes a pris- 
oner and a slave of him. Plere, for 
instance, is a man born with a taste and 
a talent for accumulating material pos- 
sessions, and money-getting becomes a 
monomania with him. ]N^othing is too 
sacred for him to sacrifice to this end. 

147 



NEWYOEKITIS 



The more he gets the greater miser he 
becomes, which is only another name 
for beggar. 

When a social or economic measure 
is proposed, a patient suffering from 
this particular form of Newyorkitis 
does not ask: Is it just? Is it honest? 
Will its adoption be helpful to all the 
people? but: How does it affect my 
individual money-getting? And his 
decision on this one question deter- 
mines his attitude. Culture will cure 
a patient of this money mania, by re- 
minding him that, at most, he has only 
a few years to stay on this planet, and 
can take nothing away with him, not 
even the material body in which he 
lodged while here. It will bring him 
to a realizing sense of the fact that, 
according to all our knowledge of the 

148 



TREATMEN^T 



hereafter, the amount of his earthly 
possessions can have no sort of effect 
on his standing in a future state, but 
that the manner in which he treated 
his fellow-men while here, and the 
methods he adopted to accumulate ma- 
terial possessions, are going to have a 
great deal to do with his status in the 
next stage of his existence. 

As the treatment continues, the pa- 
tient is more and more able to study 
all questions apart from himself and 
with selfishness in the background. 
He gradually gets rid of the delusion 
that the vast millions which he has 
been able to accumulate were the result 
of his superior intellect and industry 
over other men; but that unjust and 
vicious social and economic conditions 
in which he found himself, and for 



149 



:n^ewyoekitis 



which he may not be responsible, made 
it possible. 

The patient ceases to care for what 
the law of man permits him to do, and 
is interested only in what he can per- 
mit himself to do, to others. His care 
up to this time has been that no man 
should wrong him, or deprive him of 
his rights under human law. I*^ow his 
whole aim is not, directly or indirectly, 
to wrong other men. His cultured 
and awakened conscience is now sub- 
ject to a higher law than is on the 
statute-books of his country. 

The Newyorkitic millionaire will not 
only give his millions to found colleges, 
libraries, hospitals, and to other chari- 
ties, but he now strenuously traces the 
sources of his wealth to their ultimate 
origin, and he sees to it that nothing 

150 



teeatme:n^t 



comes into his possession which is not 
his under that higher law which he 
now obeys. He not only sells what 
he has, and gives to the poor, but he 
takes up his cross and follows Him. 

Culture will teach the !N^ewyorkitic 
that a nation has a perfect right to its 
own revolutions and civil wars when 
these are necessary to its onward march 
to higher and better things. 

We had a civil war in this country 
which got us rid of black slavery, and, 
so far as the finite mind can understand, 
if we had been deprived of this calam- 
ity we would also have missed the 
blessing which followed it, and would 
not have taken the great stride up the 
line of national evolution. 

If, for instance, as some say, inde- 
pendence to the people of the Philip- 



151 



:^rEWYOEKITIS 



pine Islands and withdrawal of our 
soldiers means revolution and civil war 
there, then let them have it. If it is 
true that a certain percentage of these 
people must be shot before the islands 
as a nation can attain to a higher plane 
of national life, then let them shoot 
each other. The people of these United 
States certainly insisted upon that right 
and privilege in 1860 and for the fol- 
lowing four years. 

It is of little moment to a dead man 
who killed hun, but a very important 
matter to the killer. 

Culture of the head and the heart 
will teach the Newyorkitic that the 
individual or the nation which goes into 
the business of making widows and 
orphans is assuming an awful responsi- 
bility. 



152 



TEEATMEIN^T- 



Culture takes a man out of the tread- 
mill of his calling. You meet a lawyer 
of national reputation, and you are 
likely to find him nothing but a stand- 
ing interrogation-point, and a man of 
most surveyable limits outside the con- 
tracted horizon of his profession. Some 
eminent medical men make one tired 
with their everlasting talk of " shop." 
Literary folk and eminent divines, too, 
often suffer in the same way. There is 
a nervous affection known as chorea^ in 
which the patient sometimes turns round 
in a small circle when he attempts to 
walk. The egotism of ISTewyorkitics 
seems to be a metaphysical variety of 
this disease. 

I know a clever and observing man 
who declares that when he enters a 
public conveyance he is able to name 



153 



IS^EWYOEKITIS 



the occupation of each male passenger 
by shnply looking at him; he says 
each one bears the marks of the har- 
ness in which he works. It will be 
said that the work of the world is done 
by such enthusiasts, and so it is. But 
the world's work ought not to be done 
by slaves. A man should be master of 
his profession or calling, whatever that 
may be, but he should not let it be 
master of him. He should come to the 
labor of his specialty from a higher 
and wider plane of thought and con- 
templation. 

The truth is that the greatest benefit 
which the mastery of any profession 
can confer on a man is, not to furnish 
him with a means of earning a suffi- 
ciency for his physical wants, or of 
making him a useful member of society, 

154 



TEEATMEIN^T 



or of getting him a reputation for skill 
or goodness, but as a stepping-stone to 
a plane from which he can contemplate 
all professions and religions and be rid 
of illusions concerning any of them. 

How often we meet a man again 
after years, and find that he is no 
worse and no better, no wiser and no 
sillier, than when we met him last! 
He has learned nothing and forgotten 
nothing. And so far as you can judge 
from his physiognomy and his talk, he 
has not had a new mental or moral in- 
sight, or made a new generalization, or 
drawn a new mental circle, or changed 
his estimates, or enlarged his mantle 
of charity, since you last talked with 
him. He has had births, deaths, and 
marriages in his family; he has had 
business troubles; he has been done 

155 



IS^EWYOEKITIS 



up by a sharper, and steadily robbed 
by corporations of one kind and an- 
other; he has toiled every day for a 
living: but all of these angels found 
the windows and doors of his mind 
and soul closed when they called, and 
could leave him nothing of benefit, 

I know a lawyer of considerable 
prominence in his profession, who, in 
conversation, dates every incident of 
his life either before or since he had 
the typhoid fever, which was twenty 
years ago. That incident seems to 
have been an epoch in his history, and 
he has never gotten rid of its domi- 
neering influence over all his mental 
processes. 

Culture, culture of head and heart, is 
the only remedy for the malady we are 
considering. Teach the ^N^ewyorkitic 



156 



TREATMEIS^T 



to open wide the doors and windows of 
his mind and heart, and place himself 
in a receptive attitude to the Divine air 
and sunshine, and they will destroy the 
mold and drive out the bats of greed, 
selfishness, hate, and narrow bigotry. 
Culture reduces a man's egotisms 
and inflammations, and stops his harp- 
ing on one string. It will widen out 
the l^^ewyorkitic's mental horizon, and 
destroy his exaggeration and conceit 
concerning his own city. It will teach 
him that there is a limit to the interest 
which the rest of the world takes in 
him and his performances, and that it 
is a poor investment of his time to lay 
traps for men's praise and commenda- 
tion, or endeavor to adjust his words 
and deeds and opinions to avoid their 
censure. 

157 



IN^EWYOEKITIS 



He will learn to study questions 
apart from himself, and settle them on 
their merits, and reserve the right to 
make up his own mind, and not allow 
others to make it up for him. He will, 
for instance, come to see that the wor- 
ship of wealth is vulgar, and he will 
learn to give it its proper place in his 
scale of estimates. His interest in what 
the rich do with their millions will be 
lost in the study of how they got their 
millions. 

If his illusions concerning riches and 
the rich have been of the nature of 
exaggerated hatred, culture will also 
correct this, and teach him that wealth 
honestly acquired is a blessing to all. 
As convalescence progresses, the pa- 
tient begins to see that he has been 
heretofore nothing but a walking appe- 

158 



TEEATMEIS^T 



tite or a bundle of appetites. It be- 
gins to dawn on his awakened intelli- 
gence that his physical body itself is 
nothing but a possession of Ms; and 
that, up to this time, he has treated it 
with much less care and consideration 
for its welfare than his horse or dog or 
any other of his earthly possessions. 

As the patient's Newyorkitis grad- 
ually disappears under this culture 
treatment, he sees his mental and spir- 
itual horizons steadily widening, and 
knows that, if it continues, he is becom- 
ing, and will become in time or eternity, 
a citizen of the universe. He gets 
new and clear views of the impor- 
tance, and lack of importance, of the 
purely human or animal part of him- 
self, and its relations to his real exis- 
tence. The illusions, delusions, and 

159 



ll^EWYOEKITIS 



hallucinations which he formerly held 
concerning birth and so-called death 
begin to clear up. He sees that getting 
born and dying are merely two physio- 
logical incidents connected with his so- 
journ on this planet; and that he has 
heretofore attached too much impor- 
tance to these and other physiological 
changes — as growth, development, de- 
generation, and death — of the tenement 
of flesh in which he happens to lodge 
for the night he spends on this partic- 
ular speck of the universe of God. 

And he appreciates the vast impor- 
tance of the fact that in all conversation 
we unconsciously serve notice on our 
hearer that what he sees of me is not 
me at all. We each use the possessive 
case when referring to any part of the 
body, or all of it, just as we use it when 

160 



TKEATMENT 



mentioning any other possession. My 
head, my heart, my foot, my body, are 
expressions which convey the idea of 
possession, just as my house, my horse, 
my coat, conveys the intelhgence that 
these things are not me^ but possessions 
of mine. 

Until a man has a clear mental grasp 
of the impersonality of his animal na- 
ture, and is able to contemplate his 
material self as a thing apart from 
his real ego, he has, to speak paradox- 
ically, his body on his hands. Until 
he classes his body along with the rest 
of his earthly possessions, and is able 
to recognize its identity and preserve 
his own, he is the slave of its appetites 
and desires, whether they be coarse or 
fine. 

A man should feed and clothe and 



161 



IS^EWYOEKITIS 



water and exercise and rest his animal 
body with at least the same care and 
intelligence as he does a valuable horse, 
or dog, or other animal he happens to 
own, and break it of bad habits or 
vicious appetites, as he would these. 
He now ceases to struggle and worry 
to have something: his principal care is 
to he something. 

I am fortunate in being able to en- 
rich this part of our subject with the 
following lines from the pen of Ernest 
Crosby. 

NEW YORK 

O sprawling, jagged, formless city ! City with- 
out a face ! 

Vast stomach of a city, with countless hands 
grasping for more ! 

162 



R Q '07 



TEEATMENT 



Huge agglomeration of people trying to get 
the better of each other, 

With scarce art and literature and distinc- 
tion enough to furnish forth a country 
village ! 

And yet in your seething energy, beneath the 
fever and delirium, there is something 
to admire : 

I like your boundless enterprise, your power 
to manage and combine, to make light of 
obstacles, to will bigly and to work your 
monstrous will. 

This is the strength of the Alexanders and 
Caesars, of the Drakes and Frobishers, 
though it still flaunt the pirate flag. 

There is something here worth saving, some- 
thing that will spare you from utter de- 
struction, something to differentiate you 
from the Sodoms and Gomorrahs of old. 

There are new continents to discover, had 
you the eyes to see them ; 

There are other worlds to conquer, waiting 



163 



r 
J 



:n^ewyoeivitis 



for the spell of your voice, had you the 
lips for utterance ; 

Treasures untold lie yonder beyond the reach 
of your writhing arms, needing only the 
evolution of your face to bridge the void. 

Conceive something worthy of expression 5 

Dream something nobler than a full stomach 
and prehensile hands ; 

Become now at last conscious of the germ of 
soul that is in you, and stake your over- 
weening energy on that ! 



164 



